Kitty Genovese, the Queens bartender whose 1964 murder became a symbol of modern apathy and alienation. Photo: AP

Kitty Genovese, rest her soul, would be 80 years old this July. Instead, she ran into a serial rapist-murderer on her way home from work on this day in 1964, and became a symbol. The influential New York Times coverage of her murder, spearheaded by then-metro editor A.M. Rosenthal, framed it indelibly as a crime of apathy as well as violence.

But the famous story of the 38 uncaring witnesses in Queens is not completely true. Yes, two in particular would qualify as villains in this piece. But of all the dozens of potential Good Samaritans, it transpired very few heard the struggles clearly enough to understand their seriousness. As it was, one neighbor shouted from his window at Genovese’s attacker, driving him temporarily away. Two others called the police. And Sophia Farrar, far from cowering behind a closed door, left her apartment to try to help Genovese, who was lying in Farrar’s arms when the ambulance came. A 2014 review of the case by Nicholas Lemann in The New Yorker is interesting reading, and recommended.

To me what bugs the most about the legend is its vision of city dwellers as a bunch of urban zombies jammed uncaringly together. Why, somebody could be murdered right in front of them and they wouldn’t lift a finger! The uncritical belief that every single one of Genovese’s neighbors turned over on their pillows and went back to sleep always seemed odd to me, given my mother’s account of her Greenpoint girlhood, where a night out meant risking the window thrown open, the nosy neighbor’s pointed query: “Coming in a bit late, aren’t ya?”

So in addition to noting the genuine advances that resulted — the birth of New York’s 911 system is the major example – I’d also like to remember the neighbors whose actions remained unsung for decades. They reflect the outer boroughs of today and of my parents’ day – places where people are simply people, for bad and, yes, for good too.

This is an index to 2,712 marriage notices published in ten different Lansingburgh, New York newspapers from 1787 to 1895, including 5,424 names. The original index was created by Troy Public Library staff in 1938-39. The TIGS scan of this book makes these records available online.

Lansingburgh newspapers reflected in the index include American Spy, Federal Herald, Lansingburgh Advertiser, Lansingburgh Chronicle, Lansingburgh Courier, Lansingburgh Democrat, Lansingburgh Gazette, Lansingburgh Daily Gazette, Lansingburgh Times and Northern Centinel. The majority of the notices pre-date New York State’s 1880 law mandating civil registration of vital events, so this index is extremely important for anyone seeking evidence of early-era marriages.

Most entries show:

Name of bride and groom;

Residence of bride and groom;

Date of marriage;

Names of newspapers reporting the marriage;

Date, newspaper name and column number where notice appeared.

Unsurprisingly, Lansingburgh is most often mentioned, with 1,708 entries. But more than two hundred other cities, towns and villages throughout New York State are represented, along with 33 other U.S. states and five foreign countries. (More than 1200 names gave no indication of residence.) Here are the localities other than Lansingburgh with the highest numbers:

Troy

483

Waterford

150

Schaghticoke

149

Pittstown

144

Albany

117

New York City

93

Brunswick

77

Cohoes

74

Hoosick

43

Cambridge

42

Stillwater

28

Easton

26

Halfmoon

24

West Troy

22

(And if you, like me, have ancestors in West Troy, it’s worth noting that in addition to the 22 West Troy entries in the chart above, there are 12 for Watervliet, the name under which West Troy was known from 1896 on.)

As McGrath notes, Troy ranked fourth among U.S. cities in per-capita wealth at the time of the 1840 federal census, and the breadth of these marriage notices no doubt reflects this area’s role as an economic magnet in the first half of the 19th century.

This latest database joins a constellation of projects on the TIGS website containing nearly 300,000 entries, reflecting people of both Irish and non-Irish descent. Again, if you have ancestry in the Capital District of New York State and you haven’t found the Troy Irish Genealogy site yet, you are missing out!

This dropped into my inbox from the Irish Family History Foundation. You might be near one of these locations, so take a look if you are interested in Irish or Scots-Irish research.

Ulster Historical Foundation Genealogy Lecture Tour, 14-30 March 2015

Staff from the Ulster Historical Foundation will soon be heading across the Atlantic to deliver their annual series of lectures in North America. They will be speaking in the locations listed below, between the dates 14 and 30 March. They are looking forward to meeting supporters and keen genealogists interested in finding their Irish and Scots-Irish ancestors. We hope you might be able to avail of an opportunity to take part in their programmes.

Registration Details: Cost for the workshop is $25, with an option of lunch for an additional $10.
Make checks payable to the Blount County Friends of the Library (BCFOL). The registration form is available on the library website at http://www.blountlibrary.org or at the Reference Desk. The registration deadline is Friday, March 6, and money and registration must be at the library by that date.
Enrollment is limited and will be on a first come, first served basis.

UPDATE, 3 March 2015: Looks like my Connors great-great grandmother is in this thing! Seriously, check it out!

Ed. Note:This blog would be missing huge chunks of family stories without the work of the indefatigable Troy Irish Genealogy Society of Troy, Rensselaer County, N.Y.

The project teams of TIGS continue to break new indexing ground each year. It’s only factual, not exaggeration, to say their website is indispensable for anyone with ANY sort of ancestry in Troy and the surrounding towns of New York’s Capital District. (Check out the additional links at the Projects page mentioned below.)

And here comes yet another important compilation from TIGS. Without further ado we yield the floor to the society’s project coordinator, Bill McGrath:

An index to 9,682 death notices that were published in ten different Lansingburgh, New York, newspapers from 1787 to 1895 was created by staff at the Troy Public Library in 1938 through 1939. The Troy Irish Genealogy Society was allowed by the Troy Library to scan the two books of these important records so they could be made available on-line for genealogy researchers. To see these records:

Lansingburgh, by the way, for those not in the Capital District Region, was the first chartered village in Rensselaer County and was settled around 1763. In 1900 Lansingburgh became part of the City of Troy, New York.

The ten different Lansingburgh newspapers were:

American Spy

Federal Herald

Lansingburgh Advertiser

Lansingburgh Chronicle

Lansingburgh Courier

Lansingburgh Democrat

Lansingburgh Gazette

Lansingburgh Daily Gazette

Lansingburgh Times

Northern Centinel

Under “RESOURCES” on the TIGS website, you will also find an informative article, “Newspapering in Rensselaer County”, which identifies which of the above newspapers are available, on microfilm or hard copy, at the Troy Library. These historical records are extremely important to genealogy researchers as the bulk of the records predate New York’s 1880 law that required reporting of deaths. Outside of church death and burial records and newspaper accounts, you will not find these records anywhere else.

In addition to the name of the deceased, other entries show the age, date of death, names of newspapers that reported the death along with the newspaper date, page and column number where you will find the death notice in the appropriate newspaper.

It is important to note that the residence for the deceased is not just Lansingburgh, but may cover all areas of New York State, other States and even foreign countries.

Hopefully you will find some of your ancestors in this new data base or in the various other data series of almost 300,000 Irish AND Non-Irish names on the Troy Irish Genealogy website.

Really, read the whole thing at Your Genetic Genealogist, and find out how a switched-at-birth story from a century ago was finally unravelled through the marriage of persistence and modern technology.

It’s also a great reminder that with DNA testing, you always have to consider what you would do, and how you would feel, if your result contains something you weren’t expecting.